Ren tried to calm her thoughts. The last time she’d used the ibis, it had shown her a fearful scene from home. Now she was worried about what it might show her, and what it might not. She took hold of the ancient amulet, closed her eyes, and made her question as clear and focused as possible. It was a question the ibis had never answered before, but maybe now it would. Now that they were so close …

“Where are the Lost Spells?” she said out loud.

Instantly, a series of images flashed through her mind.

The first: the little wooden boat bobbing along the current near the shore.

The second: a frightening and familiar figure standing near the riverbank. His face and neck were swollen with stings, his body was wrapped in crimson robes, and there was a huge scorpion stinger where his left hand should have been. It was the first Death Walker they’d faced, the Stung Man. In the river behind him, bobbing lazily along, was the little boat.

Finally, she saw a long line of men. They were dressed in ancient garb, but as the first man in line stepped into a glowing portal in the air, his features changed. He aged three thousand years in one step and his outfit was replaced by the ragged wrappings of a mummy as he disappeared through the false door.

Ren’s eyes fluttered open.

“What did you see?” said Alex. “Anything?”

She described each image carefully. “It seems like it wants us to follow the boat along the river.”

“We need to go north,” Alex said.

“That’s right,” she said. She remembered now: Unlike most U.S. rivers, the Nile flows north, out of Africa and up to the Mediterranean Sea. So that’s the way it would carry the little boat. “But why do you think it showed me the Stung Man?” she said.

Back in New York, at the start of all this, they’d used the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead and Alex’s amulet to send him back to the afterlife. But that wouldn’t work this time: They were already in the afterlife!

“I don’t know,” said Alex. “He could be guarding the Spells. We’ll have to try to avoid him or at least hold him off until we can find them.”

Hold him off? thought Ren. He has a scorpion stinger the size of a desktop printer — and usually about a thousand actual scorpions with him, too. But she had another concern that was even bigger. “What about the men — I mean mummies?” she asked. “Do you think those are the ones heading to New York?”

Alex nodded grimly. “Yeah,” he said. “Pretty sure.”

It made sense to Alex that the mummies would look like the people they’d once been while they were still in the afterlife. Then they’d be mummies again when they stepped back into the world of the living. And he knew The Order’s first target was NYC, a high-profile demonstration of their abilities, meant to strike fear into the rest of the world.

But he had a bigger concern, too. Ren had asked the ibis where the Spells were. He’d heard her with his own ears. But he also knew that her attention was divided by her homesickness and concern about her parents. And the ibis knew it, too. The last time she’d tried to ask it about their mission, it had shown her home instead.

Was this time different? he wondered as they headed north along the riverbank. Or were they chasing the wrong thing?

“So that portal, or false door or whatever,” she said, “it leads to New York?”

“Man,” said Luke. “I would love to get back to NYC.”

“Guys!” Alex snapped. “We need to concentrate on what we’re doing here, okay?”

“I know,” said Luke. “I’m just, like, seriously missing my PlayStation.”

They walked on wordlessly for a while, keeping their eyes and ears open and doing their best to move quietly, though the ground had grown so muddy that their footsteps made small squelches. The three of them were spread out in a line, with Ren farthest up the bank, Alex in the middle, and Luke closer to the river. Together, their six feet were making a chorus of burpy sounds in the soggy soil. Alex turned to the others to tell them to step softly, but as he did, he saw a man in black robes slip silently out from behind a palm tree and step in front of Ren. “Watch out!” he blurted.

But she’d already stopped cold.

She saw the knife, too.

Alex and Luke both grabbed for their amulets, but the man held the knife just under Ren’s chin. “There is no need for that,” he said. “I just came to see who passes along my bank.”

Alex didn’t dare unleash a burst of wind with the knife so close to Ren, but the amulet did allow him to understand the man’s ancient tongue. “Your bank?” he said, trying to keep the fear and concern from his voice.

“I maintain it,” said the man.

Luke moved a few squelches closer to Alex and whispered, “I could get him.”

Alex shook his head slowly and whispered back, “Not yet. Can’t risk it.” If Luke hit this guy at top speed, the impact could drive the knife right into Ren.

The man paid no attention to the hushed conversation and continued to talk about maintaining the bank. “If it weren’t for me, it would be a swamp. There is a spring — and many snakes. But I keep it nice. Nice for you to pass.”

“Uh, thanks?” said Ren, who had quietly taken hold of her amulet, too. She said it through her teeth to avoid opening her mouth too wide and cutting herself on the blade.

“You are welcome!” said the man grandly, lowering his knife just a touch. Then he seemed to remember something sad and shook his head ruefully. “But such work is not easy. I am afraid I must ask —”

“For a small contribution?” volunteered Alex eagerly, suddenly understanding. “Just a reasonable toll, perhaps?”

The man smiled broadly. “I am glad you understand me! Clearly you are a very intelligent boy.”

And you’re a bandit and a thief, thought Alex, but what he said was: “Hold on.”

Once again, Alex swung the pack from his back. He stuck his hand in and began rifling through the bottom. Soon he felt the old, cold gold clinking under his hand.

“No tricks,” said the man.

Alex pulled his hand out of the pack and held up three ancient coins — another gift from the overstocked museum. “Of course not,” he said. “Just a small, um, appreciation.”

Thousands of years had dulled the luster of the coins, but the man eyed them greedily as Alex walked them over to him, spread out on his outstretched palm. The man lunged for them with his free hand, but Alex pulled back and pocketed one of the coins. “We will give you this one when we cross ‘your bank’ safely on the way back.”

The bandit smiled and grabbed the two remaining coins with the quickness of a cobra striking. Alex felt the man’s ragged nails scratch across his palm. Then the bandit lowered his knife and began to back away, bowing slightly. “You truly are a smart boy,” he said. “And these are fine coins. So I will give you one last bit of information. Beware, strange children, for the borderlands are unsettled. There is discord between the world of the living and the world of the dead.”

“Uh, no offense,” said Ren, no longer needing to talk through her teeth. “But we kind of know that already.”

“Smarter than I thought, then,” said the thief, pocketing the coins and sheathing his knife. “But did you know that Ammit herself prowls these lands now, upset by the imbalance?”

“Ammit?” said Alex. “The devourer of souls?” Alex had seen Ammit’s strange image many times, carved into the walls of tombs and painted on the scrolls of the Book of the Dead. A demigod with the head of a crocodile, the body of a lion, and the hindquarters of a hippo, she had one grim job: to devour the hearts — and souls — of those who failed the weighing of the heart ceremony.

“Yes,” said the man, looking both ways nervously as he stepped back alongside the thick old tree. “The pull of the far shore is strong, but I have stayed on this side for long ages to avoid her fearsome jaws. Now she has come to the borderlands!”

“Uh, okay,” said Ren, clearly ready to be done with this man. “We’ll keep our eyes open.”

“Your ears,” he said. “You will know the devourer by her cry.”

And then, without another word, he stepped toward the tree and disappeared completely. Not behind it but, somehow, inside.

“Good thing Todtman thought of giving us those old coins,” said Ren, glaring at the old tree. “That guy could’ve killed me.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Alex, giddy with relief to see his best friend still alive. He knocked on the tree trunk as they walked past. “His bark is worse than his bite.”

Ren groaned at the pun, and Alex slung the pack back over his shoulder. It was lighter now, without the boat and coins. He felt a few old scrolls, protective spells from the Book of the Dead, rolling around inside.

Luke led the way, high-tech sneakers on timeless soil, as they angled back down the bank and followed the river around a wide corner. New knowledge jumbled together in Alex’s head like puzzle pieces in a box:

Ammit herself prowls the borderlands …

The gods are stronger …